Autism, Immune Vulnerability, and COVID-19

Autism, Immune Vulnerability, and COVID-19

Before you read this, I’m going to remind you of my disclaimer (there’s a link to it in the footer of every web page). Do your own homework, and consult holistic health professionals if you want to rebuild and restore your health… don’t just take my word for ANYTHING!

Given that, I’ve been getting requests to share how I’m taking care of myself, so here’s the skinny on what I’m doing, and why it works for me.

Most of us autistics have parts of our immune system which are over-active, as well as parts which are under-active. Metabolically, we’re a very diverse bunch. One of the few generalizations you can make about autism is that, like the elderly, we autistics are more vulnerable to infection and illness.

What this means is that it’s highly worthwhile to bolster our body’s anti-viral capacity, while infectious viruses (including the regular winter flu) are travelling around.

Challenges with the Canadian Medical System

Canada’s public health care is focused primarily on emergency and crisis response, which is generally well done (and much appreciated). However, illness is “managed” almost entirely by doctors trained to prescribe pharmaceutical drugs. This is the most expensive way to run health care.

If our body was a car, “emergency response only” would be the equivalent of not changing the oil, not shutting the gas cap so rain and grit gets into the fuel, not keeping the spark plugs clean, not replacing the shock absorbers, not replacing brake pads, not keeping the tires inflated to the right pressure, not using some kind of rust-protection to stop things from decaying prematurely, and so on.

Without preventive maintenance, when things go wrong with the car, they go really, expensively wrong. With preventive maintenance, keeping a car running smoothly and effectively for as long a time as possible is much more likely. Unlike cars, our bodies are designed to prevent illness and heal themselves, when given the right support.

In Canadian health care, very little attention (and no public health funding) is given to support people in prevention of illness and restoration of full health through nutrition, lifestyle, and natural medicines — which tend to be much better tolerated by autistics than drugs are. In the face of chronic health problems, natural and lifestyle medicines have the potential to restore full mental, emotional, and physical health so a drug habit isn’t necessary.

As a result, like many Canadians either living with autism, or like the Dr. Mums and Dr. Dads caring for someone with autism, I look for easily accessible, do-it-yourself ways to support health, ones that don’t take my body further out of balance: foods, supplements, herbs, lifestyle choices, and other natural supports.

Daily Routines to Optimize Immune Function

My life routines haven’t changed much since the stay-home advisory, although I’m sad to miss cancelled spring autism events and meetings. I do autism and trauma consulting work mostly online, and take midday breaks to garner some of nature’s benefits and occasionally walk the neighbour’s dog or social-distance-walk with one of my brothers.

I’m eating an organic, anti-inflammatory diet that includes home-made probiotic foods, home-sprouted seeds and peas, plus lots of immune-boosting herbs and spices. In addition, I usually intermittent fast (keep my window of food consumption within 6 to 8 hours) and at least a few times a year do a longer fast of 3 days to 2 weeks.

Sunlight & Soil Benefits

The infrared light in sunlight (the warmth that sinks through your clothes and skin) can help the mitochondria (in every cell) triple the amount of energy they produce. This extra energy can help my cells to fight off infection before it gets established, or lessen the impact of an infection on my health.

Exercise and lymphatic movement from walking help to keep my body a lot more comfortable. If I stop to do a little gardening, I’m adding the benefit of earthing to my day, which is one of the fastest ways to calm inflammation all over the body (including my inflamed brain).

Also, gardeners’ digestive tracts have a lot more of specific microbes which manufacture the happiness hormones and neurotransmitters. Getting your hands “soiled” has a lot of emotional health benefits!

Kindness Before All Else

The outbreak of COVID-19 has changed the friendliness of my daily walks. Instead of avoiding gazes, most people are smiling and nodding as they pass at caribou-distance — as the Yukon government recommends — and some people even stop for a brief conversation.

Big-city neighbours are playing guitar on their front porches, wearing clown noses, and generally greeting strangers the way Canadians who live in smaller communities usually do.

Friends on social media are making posts such as asking for suggestions on cheering up the lonely seniors in nearby assisted living apartments who lack internet access… and are receiving a heart-warming plethora of enthusiastic and practical suggestions.

Apart from the fear-mongering mainstream media, the world feels a lot more compassionate, right now, which I am deeply grateful for on a personal level (I love all the smiles), but also grateful for on a social level (in my opinion, everyone needs more smiles).

Why does this matter? Research is very clear that loving, positive social interactions are up to four times as preventive of getting ill, and up to four times as restorative of health if you do get sick, than all other health interventions put together.

Dr. Dean Ornish compiled data on this in his popular book, “Love and Survival”, because when other clinics first tried to duplicate his heart-disease reversal results, they left out the social support groups he created to help increase the quality and quantity of positive relationships in his patients’ lives (and didn’t reverse heart disease).

The Extra Care Options I Use

When colds and flus are going around, I also incorporate some do-it-yourself, do-no-harm, easy changes to my daily routines. I’m being particularly vigilant around COVID-19, and will share what I’ve learned about preventing or minimizing the impact of infections for me (what works best for you is something you need to figure out).

Antiviral Herbal Tea:

Since COVID-19 is a virus, I’m staying well-hydrated by drinking lots of antiviral herbal teas — sometimes up to 3 litres a day of different types! Staying hydrated is highly recommended right now, because drinking washes viruses out of your mouth and into your stomach acid, which kills the viruses.

Instead of trying to design drugs or vaccines t0 target specific, rapidly-mutating microbes which quickly adapt — just like the antibiotic resistant super-bugs have — antiviral herbs help your body’s immune soldiers to be creative and thorough in fighting off infections before they take hold. The research-supported anti-viral herbal teas that I’m mix-and-matching right now include:

Ashwaganda root, which not only fights viruses, but also supports my body in keeping its balance during stress

Astragalus root, which has significant global research supporting its effectiveness against multiple viruses

Cat’s Claw bark, which helps to heal and seal my leaky gut, as well as being a very potent antiviral

Cinnamon bark (Ceylon, not Cassia), which is best known for controlling blood sugar levels, boosting brain health, and keeping inflammation down, is also potently antibacterial and antiviral; I use it more as flavouring, because it’s most potent in essential oil form

Sage leaf, which is antiviral, antioxidant, and anti-inflammatory… and has the side benefit of keeping my sinuses clear in the cold, damp weather of spring

Star Anise seed, from which flu-fighting (antiviral) extracts are commercially produced

Because herbal medicinal properties are degraded by exposure to metal, I keep a ceramic slow-cooker simmering the root, seed, and bark teas, and then pour the liquid into a glass teapot through a strainer filled with the leaf and flower teas, to steep.

I don’t recommend drinking any one herbal tea day-after-day, because just like pharmaceutical drugs, they lose effectiveness over time. It’s much better to build variety into your medicines and take breaks from them, just like foods.

If you decide to drink more herbal teas, keep in mind that, of the herbs in this list, only peppermint is known to be safe for women who are pregnant or nursing.

Antiviral Foods:

Many foods fight viruses, and lucky for me, many of them are easily available and enjoyable. While I could have included oregano and thyme in the herbal tea list, I don’t like the taste of them in tea! However, I very much like them added to soups, stews, pestos, vegetable dishes, and home-made salad dressings, where they are just as potently antiviral.

Research shows that when you eat an anti-inflammatory diet, it reduces your vulnerability to viruses and other infections, and decreases diseases like cardiovascular disease by up to 75% (quote from Dr. Tom O’Bryan of TheDr.com).

If you have an autistic family member and aren’t yet eating an anti-inflammatory diet, I highly encourage you to look it up. Tiny tweaks in menu over time can have high yields in autism function, and immunity, given the neural inflammation at the root of autism challenges! Here are some more antiviral foods:

Black Currants contain strong antibacterial, antiviral, and antioxidant nutrients, plus they make a superb smoothie! If you didn’t pick and freeze any black currants last summer, there’s a black currant extract called Ribena that you can dilute in water, or use in smoothies, too. Watch out for Ribena, though, because its sugar content will also suppress immune function!

Coconuts are potently, safely, and effectively antiviral; a study is underway in the Phillipines to test this functional food’s usefulness against COVID-19 . I bake with coconut flour, eat coconut flakes for snacks, cook (and oil-pull) with coconut oil, use coconut water in many smoothies, and keep Grace coconut cream on hand to add to soups, stews, and Thai-style stir-fries (or to mix with hot water and raw cacao to make hot chocolate, yum). I would deeply miss coconut if global trade goes down.

Cranberries are good for us in so many ways, but it turns out that the juice can prevent viruses from infecting our cells 92% of the time (2007 New York study of Ocean Spray). Cranberry juice is a lot less effective when it contains sugar, which can suppress immune function for hours after you’ve eaten it. I like to suck on frozen cranberries while I read, or put them in frozen fruit ices made with a hand blender.

Garlic is powerfully antiviral. I add it raw to salad dressings, lightly roast full heads in the oven to use the “cream” in fresh pesto and sauces, grate it and steam it with vegetables, simmer it to succulence in soups and stews, and best of all, lacto-ferment it into a sweet and delicious, immune-boosting, probiotic pickle.

Seaweed in soups, stews, and lacto-fermented (probiotic) pickles is highly nutrient-dense and tasty. For those who don’t like seaweeds, once cooked they can be puréed and disappear into soups and stews, or just get composted out of the pickles (a lot of their benefits go into the pickle juice, so save the pickle juice for salad dressings). Seaweeds show antiviral activity against a wide range of viruses.

Vegetables in general are antiviral, to protect themselves from infection while growing — especially cabbage and onion family veggies. Otherwise, the more colourful your produce is, the better it will support your immune system. Vegetables and fruits contain the highest amounts of infection-fighting compounds when they are fresh, ripened naturally, and organically grown. While you’ve got more time at home, check out which local organic and biodynamic farmers will deliver freshly-grown vegetables and fruit to your door!

Walnuts have antiviral properties and can help to prevent infection, but once you’re infected with a virus, the arginine that walnuts contain can aggravate or lengthen your infection. If you start to have any throat symptoms that might indicate COVID-19 is trying to infect you, stop eating walnuts (and other nuts and seeds high in arginine).

Wine (Red) I’m including because, though I have perhaps four alcoholic drinks a year, I know many people who enjoy it a lot more often. Many red fruits contain an antioxidant called resveratrol, which prevents viruses from multiplying. However, alcohol can be really hard on people with autism. Autistic livers tend to be already hugely overworked, and don’t need extra detoxification loading (alcohol gets broken down to sugars by the liver). Alcohol is especially hard on those of us with yeast and fungal issues, because yeast already makes too much alcohol inside us, every time we eat sugars or starches.

Please note that elderberries, renowned for antiviral and immune benefits, are not on this list. The reason is that elderberry can aggravate a cytokine storm, which is the driving force behind ARDS (the Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome which is killing so many seniors and other vulnerable people).

While I’m talking about food, I should also mention more about fasting. Fasting has so much research indicating so many health benefits, I’ll just refer you to Dr. David Jockers’ recorded fasting summit. Intermittent fasting — extending the overnight hours I’m not eating any food — helps to keep my brain inflammation down nicely.

I have much more energy, emotional stability, and brain clarity when I’m fasting, because my body gets a total break from gut-related inflammation (though stress-related and toxin-related inflammation are still there). To be thorough, though, high chronic inflammation (including autistic brain inflammation) can also result from compressed nerves and chronic infections.

Antiviral Essential Oils:

Research is showing that the COVID-19 virus is getting into our bodies through our noses, mouths, and eyes. What the virus meets when it enters us is determining whether we avoid infection altogether, whether we become an invisible carrier, or whether we get sick.

Essential oils are particularly suited to protecting our airways. Most essential oils are best used through inhalation; many aggravate the skin, and most aren’t edible (even when they are pharmaceutical grade).

Here is a list of easily available essential oils which have shown some antiviral properties:

Cinnamon

Clove

Eucalyptus

Lavendar

Lemon

Oregano

Peppermint

Pine

Tea Tree

Thyme

Essential oils are easy to use, even when you don’t have a diffuser. When I was a child with congested sinuses and lungs, my mother used to seat me in front of a bowl of steaming-hot water with a few drops of eucalyptus oil in it. She’d drape a towel over my head, covering the bowl, and have me breathe in the steam. It got me decongested, every time!

Antiviral Homeopathics:

Because viruses mutate rapidly, they very quickly develop resistance to drugs. With antibiotics, we’ve already reached a limit where more and more antibiotic drugs are ineffective because “superbugs” have mutated and evolved faster than the drugs can get developed. We have reached the limit of the “Kill All The Germs” model of health.

Louis Pasteur and Antoine Béchamp had a life-long rivalry around whether it was more effective to kill off all the microbes (Pasteur’s position, which is why we pasteurize milk), or more effective to strengthen people’s overall health and terrain so they resist infections better (Béchamps’ position, which Pasteur acceded to as he was dying). I’m a Béchamp fan.

The benefit of homeopathic treatments is that they support organs, systems, and cycles in the body to operate better, without killing any of the probiotic (helpful to life) microbes within us. Stronger health then resists infections… like viruses. Homeopathics can:

use quantum medicine to develop immunity to the frequency of the virus, so antibodies are ready to recognize and fight as soon as a virus is encountered.

I’ll cover treating the symptoms homeopathically when you get infected (the top 4 bullet points), before I get into homeopathically developing immunity. The idea with homeopathic treatment is that you look up the symptoms you’re experiencing (my favourite reference is Homeopathic Self-Care by the Reichenberg-Ullman couple).

Since COVID-19 infection starts with a tickle in the throat, I would look up throat symptoms and choose the remedy that was the best fit with the symptoms I was experiencing. Then I’d call the health food store to make sure they have it in stock, and if they didn’t have it, order it online, or get it shipped from a homeopathic doctor through an online consult.

Sorry, momentary voicing of deep frustration, I’ll get back to the positive stuff again now…

Anyway, I’m not going to list all of the homeopathics the way I did herbs, because they don’t work the same way. Herbs are like gentle drugs, pushing your body to support or suppress symptoms.

In contrast, homeopathics are like hormones and neurotransmitters, substances in the parts-per-million and parts-per-billion ranges which nudge the body to do what it’s designed to do, only more effectively. Hormones and neurotransmitters are HIGHLY individual; what’s superb for one person could make another really sick.

Fortunately, there aren’t dire consequences if you choose the wrong homeopathic remedy (the way there would be if you chose the wrong pharmaceutical drug). For homeopathy to be effective, you need to find a remedy that’s a good match for the symptoms you’re experiencing, and not everyone has the same symptoms of infection.

Unethical researchers who want to slam homeopathy have a heyday, treating many different types of migraine with the same homeopathic remedy instead the 5 to 15 different ones that a homeopath would bio-individually prescribe to suit each person’s symptoms. Once you know this, it gets very easy to identify unethical research on homeopathy.

For first aid, I keep some drainage (blended) remedies and individual remedies on hand at all times to treat things like sore throats, sinus issues, lung issues, and detox issues, as they come up.

Antiviral Supplements:

It’s always a good idea to consult a holistic health professional regarding individual need, quality, and quantity, before adding daily supplements, apart from taking a high-quality, food-based, organic, (and if you’re smart, fermented), daily multivitamin. There are lots of factors at play:

Different health problems and different pharmaceutical drugs deplete the body of specific nutrients, so individual nutrient needs can vary dramatically. The Walsh Institute and Mensah Medical have great data on nutrient deficiency relationships with learning and developmental issues.

Some supplements contain additional ingredients that get in the way of you absorbing the nutrients you need, blocking both nutrients from the supplements, and nutrients from food you eat when you take those supplements.

If you get a pricier but bio-available supplement and only take it every 3 or 4 days, you’re way better off than if you get a cheap one your body can’t use, or that causes additional harm!

Pre-eminent vitamin C tracker Doris Loh just came out with some thoroughly research-supported blog posts showing that in parts of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, a vitamin C (ascorbic acid) and melatonin protocol is both:

preventive of ARDS (Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome) from COVID-19 infection, and so far,

restores health in 100% of even the most immune-compromised infected (and very sick) hospitalized COVID-19 patients.

If you’re interested in the recommended protocols for prevention of ARDS, and recovery from ARDS, you can find the details of how the protocols work, and what to do, in these two blog posts:

Access to Information, and Why You Haven’t Heard This In the News:

I’ve been spreading this information about the Ascorbic Acid & Melatonin protocols to friends, to the “essential services” staff in the stores where I get food and hardware, to seniors and other vulnerable people I know (plus the closest senior’s homes), and to people I hope will pass the information along to where it’s most needed.

As a result, natural health successes in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and increasingly, elsewhere, are not being broadcasted here. Thank goodness for the internet!

Supplements I’m Taking:

In terms of my own supplements, I’m taking vitamin C (of course). I’m also taking magnesium bisglycinate (the best-absorbed form of magnesium) because magnesium is used in so many health-promoting tasks in the body that it’s really easy to run out when you’re immune compromised.

Magnesium helps to keep my gut, liver, brain, foot spasms, and other grumpy parts happier, and I really notice if I run out! If gut absorption of magnesium and sulfates is really poor, Epsom salt baths are a real boon, because the skin will drink them in, bypassing the gut absorption problems.

I’m also taking humic and fulvic acid. I find these particularly helpful for my brain, but they really shine in that they attach to and remove systemic toxins, funghi, gram-negative (unhealthy) bacteria, and viruses from the body, without removing nutrients the way other chelators do.

So far I’ve tried four different types of humic-fulvic supplement. The liquids are expensive (you’re paying for transporting the weight of the water), the inexpensive Ayurvedic Shilajit has a smell and taste that can be off-putting even for non-autistics, but the inexpensive powders (dissolved in hot water, tea, soup, etc.) are going down nice and easy, every day.

And as always, I take full-spectrum digestive enzymes and a rotation of various soil-based probiotics with every meal. These are well-known to reduce your vulnerability to infection, because the gut and the immune system overlap by between 65 and 90%, depending on which researcher you listen to. Anything that helps the gut, helps the immune system!

In the case of COVID-19 infection, be careful with selenium, because it can feed the ARDS inflammation, making it faster and worse. The B vitamins also help your body deal with stress much better, which is another way to reduce vulnerability. For an overview of potentially useful supplements, I found this blog post helpful.

The body is supposed to manufacture its own glutathione, a powerful anti-oxidant that can be recycled indefinitely as long as those pathways aren’t “under construction” and inaccessible — a situation that’s far too common in those of us with autism.

There are several ways to increase the body’s production of glutathione by up to 7x (TUDCA supplements and coffee enemas are the most effective). Glutathione can be orally supplemented, as well, but many forms are completely broken down in the gut.

With the most absorbable forms of glutathione, it’s easy to get the dosage too high and end up feeling both intoxicated and hung over, as the fatty cells in your brain and body dump too many fat-soluble toxins into the bloodstream, all at once.

If you’re going to try glutathione supplements, look up Liposomal Glutathione, and S-Acetyl L-Glutathione, which are the best-absorbed forms, and get some dosage advice from a holistic health professional!

Finally:

Make phone or video calls to people you love. Cuddle with your pets. Even if every other option I’ve shared isn’t within your reach, or any change feels overwhelming right now, letting yourself feel more love can make all the difference.

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